


Right of Conquest

by stapling_pages



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bottom Tom Riddle, I Don't Even Know, Inheritance, M/M, Manipulation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Bottom, Service Top, Top Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:50:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stapling_pages/pseuds/stapling_pages
Summary: Lord Voldemort knows something is wrong the second he presses the tip of his wand to Wormtail’s Dark Mark. He wants to blame it on Wormtail’s incompetence, on the newness of his created body and his soul still settling into it, but he hasn’t survived this long by beingstupid. Something else is at work here.But it’s a matter for another time. His wayward followers are arriving for their punishments, and for the spectacle of Harry Potter’s death.An odd leaden feeling settles in his chest when Harry Potter takes up his wand again. It’s a weight he’s felt before, years ago when Morfin Gaunt had been a hair’s breadth away from disowning him. An impossibility—blood, no,kinmagic.There is only one way Harry Potter could possibly hold sway over him in this manner.So, what to do . . . ?





	Right of Conquest

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been working on this off-and-on for a bit, and decided to start posting it. It was inspired by a comment from Krysania ages ago on _Iron and Bones_ , and yeah.
> 
> Enjoy.

When Harry is eleven and entering the wizarding world for the first time, a goblin of Gringotts takes him aside as he’s leaving the bank. A thick folder filled with forms and contracts and a long, long “Terms of Service” is shoved into his hands along with a plain pen that glows green for a second when Harry touches it. He scrambles to keep from dropping them, clutching the folder to his chest. A sneer is his reward.

“Read and sign everything,” the goblin commands. “Use _only_ that pen, _and don’t lose it_.”

Harry bites back his questions, agrees without argument, and follows Hagrid out of the bank.

Later, he tries so hard to make sense of it, to crack the code of legal jargon and investment percentages, of bylaws and century old agreements. But he’s only eleven, and there is no one he can turn to for help. Sooner than he’d like to admit, Harry is signing blindly, hoping with every pen stroke that he isn’t signing away everything his parents had left him.

He takes a moment to puzzle over the phrase “right of conquest,” turning it over in his head. A dull ache has settled in his hand, another behind his eyes and deeper still. Harry sighs and puts pen to paper again.

 

.

 

The serpent carvings are moving, writhing along the columns as their scales gleam like oil on wet asphalt. The statue of Salazar Slytherin is cast in shadows, blurred into a faceless monolith. A steady, maddening drip of water echoes. Tom Riddle’s heartbeat is a steady throb under his hands. Lips slick with blood stretch into a Cheshire’s smile. His own heart is beating like a Snitch’s wings while his hands shake.

“Is something wrong, Harry?” Riddle’s voice is sweetly breathless, mockingly at odds with loose hold Harry has on his throat. “I thought you were going to punish me?”

Harry’s heart stutters, skips like a stone over a lake’s surface. He _wants_ to—wants to tighten his grip, to squeeze until his nails bite into creamy skin, until air stalls in Riddle’s throat and that smug arrogance is choked out of him. He wants to strangle him until Riddle _begs_ him to stop, red-faced and teary-eyed, and to _keep going_ until Harry can go back to pretending the seething blackness in his mind doesn’t exist.

But he can’t bring himself to do it. Not even to Riddle, who _deserves_ it. Not even in a dream, where it _doesn’t even matter_.

“Poor Harry,” says Riddle. It’s soft, almost fond. He raises a hand to pet Harry’s cheek, light enough that Harry can pretend it isn’t happening. “You’re trying _so_ hard, but you can’t protect anyone, can you?” He laughs at the snarl this earns him, at the sudden dig of thumbs into the delicate flesh under his chin.

Gasps, eyes wide, when Harry presses harder.

Bloody triumph settles in Harry’s gut—its short lived.

The next gasp shivers in a way that has Harry swallowing roughly. Dark lashes flutter closed over darker eyes. The hand at Harry’s cheek buries itself in his hair, tugging insistently. Harry ignores it, transfixed by the odd, pretty gasps and the growing flush of pink over pale skin.

Riddle shifts, legs wrapping around Harry’s waist to try and pull him deeper between them. He lets it happen, trying to ignore the heat of the thighs pressed against him, around him. Dark eyes peek up at him, gleaming with something he can’t read. It’s the only warning he gets before Riddle moves again, hips shifting even closer to grind against Harry’s growing erection. His hands convulse around the flesh under them. With a shuddering moan, Riddle arches, pressing against his hold.

Everything’s gone wrong. He’s meant to fight Riddle—the Dark Lord—but he can’t even manage that in a dream, can barely manage it in reality. They want Harry to kill him and yet, here he is, wrapped in the heat of Riddle’s thighs and rutting against him.

Riddle’s hand leaves Harry’s hair. He trails his nails down the side of Harry’s neck, somehow turning the action into an affectionate threat. Fingers catch the front of his robes, dragging him down until he can feel the wet heat of Riddle’s panting on his face. The split in Riddle’s lower lip catches his attention. A terrible idea claws its way into his brain.

Before he can stop himself, Harry leans down further. He catches Riddle’s lower lip between his teeth, right over the wound, biting down hard so that the next gasp is one of pain. Copper permeates his mouth. The body under him shivers. He bites down harder, not yet willing to break skin further but high on the thrill Riddle’s pained whine gives him. Nails drag down his back, sharp edges blunted by fabric.

He’s going mad.

Harry releases the abused flesh from his teeth to shove his mouth against Riddle’s. Their lips slid awkwardly, smearing blood. Teeth click together. The mouth under his sighs, hands threading into his hair to hold him in place as Riddle tilts his head. A tongue toys with the seam of his mouth, teasing and coy, and he finds himself answering, following it into the wet cavern of Riddle’s mouth. This earns him a pleased hum. A haze of heat burns through him.

Lips close around his tongue. A light suction pulls at him while slim hips roll. _Think of what else you could have in my mouth_ , they seem to tease.

He groans. Everything seems to fall away, leaving him with nothing beyond the boy under him.

Heat builds between them, climbing higher and higher until Harry is dizzy with it. It coils low in his gut, in the hardness of his cock and the urge to rip away fabric so he can sink into Riddle’s heat.

Dimly, he hears someone pounding on a door.

He lets go of Riddle’s neck, moves down to bite and suck at the bruises painting it. Ragged panting and soft moans urge him on. His hands snake lower still, creeping under fabric to grope at smooth skin.

Someone’s yelling.

“Boy!” The door rattles, creaking under meaty fists.

Harry pauses, mouth closed around a slim collarbone. That voice sounds familiar . . .

“BOY!” His uncle.

He jerks back, staring down at the wreck he’s made—was _allowed_ to make—of Riddle. Dark, glazed eyes stare back at him. Dark handprints and reddening hickeys cover his throat. School robes are in disarray, torn open where Harry couldn’t focus enough to manage buttons, revealing lovely skin he wants to press his mouth to. Trousers are undone and shoved as low as they can get with Harry still caught between Riddle’s legs. Swallowing, he leans down, aiming for the nub of pink just barely visible.

_“BOY!”_

In the half second it takes for his uncle’s enraged yelling to finally pull him from his dream, Harry swears the eyes looking up at him are _red_.

 

.

 

Weeks later, at the park off of Magnolia Road, Harry meets a terribly, horribly familiar boy.

He almost doesn’t recognize him at first. Schoolboy robes have been replaced by a thin cotton button-up, dark trousers, and a bluish waistcoat nearly modern enough to pass for muggle attire. Once short, perfectly styled hair now hangs around the curve of his jaw. From a distance, he looks like he could be any other dark-haired teenager. Except—

Something in Harry freezes at the sight of him, sits up and takes notice. He knows who this is, even before Tom Riddle turns to look at him. But part of him doesn’t count on red eyes instead of dark ones.

“Harry Potter,” Voldemort greets him with a choirboy smile, “I trust you’re doing well.”

He starts to say something else but is cut off by Harry’s fist. He stumbles back, hand raising to touch his split lip. Harry follows him. He grabs the collar of Voldemort’s shirt and uses it as leverage to slam him back against a tree. Voldemort smiles a Cheshire’s grin, smearing blood along his lower lip, teeth bared. It’s enough to douse the rage building in Harry.

Unwillingly, he remembers pretty gasps and heat.

Harry lets go as if he’s been burnt, backing away and trying not to think. He reaches for his wand instead. It’s a feeble defense—he can barely look at Voldemort without thinking of _that_ and can’t think of a single spell at all. He levels his wand with Voldemort’s throat anyway, and forces his hand to stay steady.

“What are you doing here?” The tip of his wand digs into flesh.

“How rude—” he doesn’t even try to hide his amusement “—I came all this way, intending to play nice, and you won’t even attempt common courtesy?” A slow tilt of his head, dark lashes lowering to turn amusement into something dangerous. “I’m hurt, Harry.”

Harry swallows.

“Voldemort,” he says, stilted and hoarse, “horrible weather we’re having. Have you killed Wormtail yet?”

“Not yet. Perhaps as a birthday present?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

Above them, the sun is boiling hot, a physical weight pushing down on their shoulders. It feels wrong, an aberration, to see the Dark Lord in sunlight. Harry knew him as a creature of shadows and half-light, some fairytale being carved from nightmares. A sidhe toying with humanity. This isn’t—it’s not . . .

“Why are you here?” Exhaustion pulls at him, lining his voice, dragging his wand down.

Something in Voldemort’s expression shifts, softens into what could be serene indifference if not for the gleam in his eyes. Harry isn’t sure what it is. Victory, maybe, though he can’t figure out Voldemort thinks he’s won.

“We’re going to have a talk, you and I,” he takes a step forward, hands clasped behind him, “about this thrilling little war we’ve found ourselves in. Not here, of course. I’ve no interest in dealing with your watcher right now.” Another step closer. Leans forward just enough that he has to look up through his eyelashes to meet Harry’s eyes.

He forces himself to stand his ground.

“I want a vow that this isn’t a trap.”

“Of course, Harry.”

Vows are made and they’re off to some tea house Voldemort favors.

They receive some very curious stares from the other patrons—two school-age boys attending afternoon tea at a fabulously expensive establishment, one perfectly at home and the other painfully out of place. Harry can’t blame them. He would stare too, if he were them. But all the same, he wishes they would stop. Voldemort doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe he enjoys it, having the weight of the room’s eyes locked on him.

Their tea—some blend Harry forgot the name of as soon as it was ordered—and food arrives. Voldemort pours their cups, expression alarmingly pleasant as he makes small talk. Harry bares it in what he hopes is stony, unmoved silence and not disturbed bewilderment. How the hell does Voldemort know how he takes his tea?

Time trickles by. Ten minutes in and Voldemort is still playing at being some high-society hostess.

Harry breaks when he moves on to prattle about some potions conference in France.

“What the hell is this about?” he snaps.

With his cup halfway to his lips, Voldemort pauses. A half-second flicker of a shark’s grin before he’s moving again, sipping his tea. Harry grits his teeth as he waits.

“What do you know about this squabble between us, Harry?”

 _Squabble_ —like it’s a school yard row, or some other minor annoyance. As if he isn’t a mass murdering psychopath, hell-bent on some insane scheme that will never work in reality. As if everything can be fixed with a bit of tape and a few empty apologies. _Squabble_. It’s—a rancid, vile thing creeps up his throat—it’s how Dumbledore would phrase it.

“You killed my parents and are pissed I didn’t die too.” He can’t help but bare his teeth at the end. If they get into a fight here, Harry will lose. He’s spoiling for one anyway.

Voldemort sets his cup down with a click. He looks vaguely uninterested and deeply unimpressed as he picks through the platter of little sandwiches. Somehow, Harry ends up with four of them on his plate.

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” Harry forces out.

Humming, the Dark Lord taps his chin.

“And what does that make your actions, then?” He refills his cup, side-eyeing Harry’s untouched tea with disapproval. Too bad. Harry isn’t going to eat or drink anything Voldemort has touched, even with his stomach eating itself alive.

“Self-defense.”

“Even during first year, when you went to protect something you had no reason to be concerned about?”

“You were going—”

“You were a first year, Harry.” His voice is soft, coaxing. He tilts his head, blinks slowly in a way that reminds Harry of that Beauxbatons boy who had tried to get him to dance at the Yule Ball. It’s sort of terrifying. “Why not leave matters to the adults? Why risk yourself and your friends?”

“Because—because I—” Frustration builds, frothing into a heady buzz.

“Why let them make you into a shield?”

“You’re the one forcing that!” Harry’s hands are shaking. ‘Why does any of this matter?’ he wants to scream. He wants to reach over the table, take Voldemort by the shoulders, and throttle him—to scream himself hoarse, ‘why won’t you leave me alone!’

“And if I stopped? What then, Harry?” He leans closer, chin resting on laced fingers, red eyes half-hidden by dark lashes and a sweetly false smile on his face. “Would you still let them bleed you dry?”

“You’re not going to.” Harry scowls. His fingers dig into his knees. There’s no way Voldemort would stop after years of fixating on Harry’s death. His ego wouldn’t let him, if nothing else. Frustration twists, edges blackening into something he doesn’t want to think about.

A knowing edge sharpens Voldemort’s smile.

“I could be convinced to.” A lie, it has to be. “Things have changed. You have something I want and, well,” his smile blooms into something that makes Harry’s gut churn, “you know how we Slytherins can get.”

“I—” He coughs, choking on the seething mess of his thoughts. A lie, a lie. Is there really a way to go back to being ‘just Harry?’ Voldemort always lies. _Our choices define us, Harry._ He sucks in a hard breath and tries. “I won’t join you.”

“I don’t want your loyalty.”

That freezes the air in his lungs. That’s what everyone wants from him. What else does Harry even _have_ beyond loyalty? Useless piles of gold—his followers would lay their vaults at his feet—and the fickle attention of the wizarding populous—they don’t dare speak his name, not even when they thought he was _dead_.

The smile Voldemort gives him is so perfectly sympathetic, so _understanding_ , that it wraps around to being the most mocking expression he’s ever seen. It would be impressive, if it didn’t make him want to scratch off his own skin to try and bleed out the itching heat it invokes in him. Harry doesn’t understand it. He _knows_ he’s being mocked, that the sympathy isn’t real, but he wants—

He _wants_ —

“S-so what,” he swallows, straightens his spine, and forces bravado into his voice, “you want me to give you the war? I don’t think so.” Harry sits back, certain he’s made his point, whatever it is.

But Voldemort laughs softly from behind his hand, like a noblewoman from one of Aunt Petunia’s period dramas, light, airy, and dripping with derision.

“My, how arrogant of you, Harry,” says Voldemort brightly. He takes a sip of tea. “This war won’t be decided by you, regardless of what Dumbledore and his peons would have you believe. The ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ might be a figurehead for the masses but _Harry Potter_ ,” he stresses with a polite, freezing smile, “is just a little boy crying wolf.”

“What?”

“Oh? You haven’t seen the Prophet?” The other wizard picks over the miniature desserts, selecting a chocolate macaron stuffed with raspberries and ganache. “According to them, you’re an attention-seeking brat and Dumbledore is a fear-mongering old man looking to overthrow the Ministry.

“After all, the Dark Lord has been dead for over a decade, and necromancy is a pipe dream.” He leans his face against a half-closed fist, matching Harry’s blank stare with bright, mocking eyes. “Quaint, isn’t it?”

Harry crosses his arms.

“Alright, so, you don’t want me to become a Death Eater, and you don’t think—” Sighing, he shakes his head. “Whatever. Are you going to beat around the bush for another half-hour or are you going to tell me what this is about?”

“I’m beginning to think you don’t like my company, Harry.”

“I don’t.”

“Really? You certainly dream about it often enough.”

Ants are burrowing their way through his insides, a crawling, ravenous hoard of nausea. Something vile creeps its way up his spine.

“That doesn’t mean anything.” A quiet whisper when what he wants is to scream denials from the rooftops.

Voldemort watches.

It can’t mean anything. _It can’t._ Because if it does, then Harry . . . is everything the Dursleys said he was. The freak under the stairs, unfit for polite company, best kept locked away until another mess needed cleaning. Harry doesn’t handle confined spaces well, anymore.

Under the table, his hands are shaking.

“I wonder,” Voldemort says, “are you denying it because we’re both male or because we’re enemies? Or . . .” He pauses, a malicious gleam brightening his eyes.

Dread pools in Harry’s stomach.

“Harry!”

He jumps, knee banging against the table. Tea sloshes over the rim of his cup. Harry looks over his shoulder to find Remus standing in the tearoom’s doorway. He turns back to Voldemort.

“It seems our time is up, Harry,” he says with a sigh. But Voldemort doesn’t seem upset by it, a mean little smirk playing at his mouth.

Harry jerks to his feet, and Voldemort smoothly stands with him. Remus is heading towards them, winding around tables. Voldemort steps around theirs, fingertips dragging along its surface.

Something bubbly froths in Harry’s stomach—nerves, he decides, hopes. Why is Voldemort getting so close?

He smiles, and leans into Harry’s side, curls a hand around his shoulder. His breath is warm on Harry’s cheek and smells sweet, like the tea he’s been drinking. The bubbles in Harry’s stomach burst.

‘ _What are you doing?_ Push him away!’ he screams at himself. But his limbs won’t cooperate, frozen in place by a heady buzz emanating from where Voldemort is touching him. A part of him, kept locked in a dark corner of his mind, wants to wrap around the other wizard and soak up the attention. It wants to ignore their audience and sink into the heat of the body pressed against him.

“I enjoyed our date, Harry,” Voldemort murmurs, just loudly enough to be overhead. Behind Harry, Remus chokes on a sharp inhale.

Alarm bells riot in his head. Harry opens his mouth to protest, to deny—

Voldemort leans closer. Dry, soft lip press against the corner of his mouth. Viciously, Harry forces down the urge to turn into the kiss. With a quiet sigh, Voldemort pulls away, taking that heady buzz with him.

“I’ll see you another time.” Voldemort smiles with faux shyness, lets his hand slide down Harry’s arm in a show of reluctance, and walks away, as if nothing is wrong. As if Harry isn’t shaking apart at the seams.

He leaves Harry the bill.

That night he dreams of a warm, welcoming body under him, and a lovely voice moaning praises into his ear.


End file.
